Net-generation learners are growing up in an era when much of the learning, communication, socializing and ways of working take place through digital means. Living in this digital era may result in different ways of thinking, ways of approaching learning, strategies, and priorities. The Net-Geners therefore, need new skills and new strategies to…

The French language development of children adopted (n = 24) from China was compared with that of control children matched for socioeconomic status, sex, and age. The children were assessed at 50 months of age, on average, and 16 months later. The initial assessment revealed that the 2 groups did not differ with respect to socioemotional…

In today's increasingly multicultural and multilingual world, having the ability to use a variety of second (L2) or foreign languages is no longer just a luxury but a socioeconomic necessity. This situation has given rise to an urgency to understand more deeply the relationship between L2 learning and use and factors arising from membership in…

Action research is geared to changes for the better and has the potential to assist teachers to extend their teaching skills and develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their classroom and their learners. However, in the area of applied linguistics, the viability of action research has been seriously questioned. In this article, we argue…

While first language social networks offer immigrants practical and emotional support in the early period of their settlement in a new country, the development of social networks through English is crucial at this time not only for the acquisition of the linguistic and social capital vital to their long-term advancement, but also for the…

The concept of transnationalism in many disciplines has deepened appreciation for stories of immigrant adaptation in today's globalizing world--stories that reveal shifting conceptualizations of "home," the everyday practices (e.g., cooking) that help families establish meaningful connections to home, as well as the struggles to maintain those…

This article examines the findings of a longitudinal study of the learning and use of English at an English-medium university in Hong Kong. The aim of the investigation was to track the learning experiences of a group of 28 undergraduates and to identify the challenges they faced when studying for their degrees in a second language. This article…

This article addresses the debate about the status of American Sign Language (ASL) as an example of ideological beliefs that impact linguistic judgments and policies. It also discusses the major challenges to the status of ASL with respect to formal legislative recognition, its utility as a medium of instruction, and its status as a legitimate…

This article reports on the difference between points of view in narrating a short story. The EFL learners taking part in the control group were required to recount the events from the third person perspective and the subjects in the experimental group from the first person perspective. The methodological frame of the study was based on Koven's…

Testing of second language pragmatic competence is an underexplored but growing area of second language assessment. Tests have focused on assessing learners' sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities but the speech act framework informing most current productive testing instruments in interlanguage pragmatics has been criticized for…

Since the introduction of gender themes into university teaching in geography in Spain in 1989, significant gains have been made but challenges remain in relation to placing gender into undergraduate curricula and developing teaching resources in local languages. Geographers in Spain have to meet those challenges in the near future in order to…

Many reports over the past 40 years have investigated aspects of language education in Australia. While the majority of these reports have made recommendations to improve Australia's national language capability, few, if any, seem to have been implemented effectively. In this paper we attempt to gauge the impact of a 2007 Australian Council for…

It is quite common for Australian schools introducing Japanese as a foreign language to engage native Japanese volunteers to assist in the classroom using a collaborative team-teaching approach. These volunteer Japanese assistant teachers, commonly referred to as Japanese Assistant Teachers (JATs), are an indispensable asset to school language…

In this paper, I describe an early learners' (Years 1-3) Indonesian classroom interaction developed around the concept of intercultural understandings of ways of talking about oneself and about and to others, in Indonesian and Australian contexts. I explore planned interactions for scaffolded discussion about the language of self and others in…

This article looks at how the intricate issue of identity has been addressed and framed in composition and TESOL studies (C&T). It reviews five articles and a book as a sampler to explore identity research in various contexts ranging from the problematic rise of identity in second-language acquisition (SLA) research in 1997, which represented a…